Church at Sardis Rev, 3:1-6

Good morning. As we've been doing in recent weeks, as a kind of a parallel to our study of the book of Revelation, we've been taking a look at some of the trends that have been characteristic of things coming out of the events since the September 11th event that all sticks in everybody's minds. The idea, again, is not to try to grab on to some specific event. I don't see September 11th as any kind of a fulfillment of prophecy. But nonetheless, the trends coming out of it, we've identified from Revelation 13, one world government, one world religion, and one world economic system. And the next thing I think is a prophetic trend that's important for us to take a look at.

In Genesis 16, Sarah, or Sarai as she was called earlier, had a maid, Hagar. And Hagar was given this prophecy here in Genesis 16, speaking of Ishmael, who is the father of the Arabs. And one of the things you'll note is there are some letters or words there that are in red. Those are those that match word for word or even phrase for phrase. the promise given to Abraham about Isaac. So, some similarity there.

But the bottom line is, look in the italics in verse 12, the description of Ishmael and his offspring. Verse 12, he will be a wild donkey of a man. His hand will be against everyone, and everyone's hand will be against him. And he will live to the ease of all his brothers.

That was 3,900 years ago. And what we see now, a lot of time having passed, is that bringing itself into fulfillment, even in the last few months, and it will continue to be so. Just to give it some historical context, this is almost 2,000 BC. Here's Abraham, father Ishmael through Hagar, and then As described a few chapters later, here is Abraham, father of Isaac, through Sarah. Here is Ishmael, father of the Arabs. And Isaac, father of the Jews. And this having taken place around 1900 B.C., roughly.

Now, here is about 600 B.C. Muhammad comes along. and develops this religion of Islam. Prior to that, we got 365 days in a year. Prior to that, the Arabs had about 365 gods. So now what Muhammad did is he brought that all together under the moon god. So by 610, he'd gone in and proposed this new religion. What that did is it spread the influence of the Arabs.

So by 632, When Muhammad had died, he had already taken over a goodly area of the Arab world with this new religion, spreading this religion of Islam, the religion of the Arabs, into many other countries. By a hundred years after Muhammad's death, they finally turned around the Islamic invasion in Tours, France. that far away. Let me give you a map to show you the spread. Where you see in green is where Islam spread and two different sects of Islam, but it spread all throughout this area on over to the Philippines and on over even into like the battle in Kosovo was actually based on Islam having come into that area. So here you see the fulfillment of this prophecy.

His hand will be against everyone and everyone's hand will be against him. And now it's come to our shores. Now it's come to our shores. And that's the battle we're fighting now. Even into Afghanistan and that area, Afghanistan is not Arab, but the inclusion of Osama bin Laden, who is Arab, has created the problem. So you see a fulfillment of that. So that's a fourth trend we see coming from scripture, and it's amazing, after almost 4,000 years, that very prophecy hits our shores. Now, we'll dig in this morning into Revelation chapter 3.

We'll be going through the first six verses. And as you're turning there, Just one of the things we've been trying to encourage people to do is to put together a binder. It's not law, just encouragement. But we'd like people, if you feel motivated to do so, put together a binder. We've got inserts even for the front of the binder and the spline, all the pages. Something that wasn't handed out is a map, very much like this one, you can also insert in your binder and may help you keep track of the various cities that we'll be going through.

We've been through Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamon, and Thyatira. Today we'll be looking at Sardis, located here. That's the city, the church at Sardis we'll be looking at this morning. Sardis. What we typically do is, for those of you who have been following us here, we typically first take a look at what are the characteristics of the city, because what we find is Scripture addresses the particular characteristics of that city, where that church is located, addressing it perfectly. The match is incredible. And so that's why we find value in doing that.

Sardis was established, just to kind of give you a frame of reference, it was established about the same time as the Book of Judges events. Okay, around roughly the year 1200, about that time. But it didn't develop much until about 700 BC. And so a number of years passed before it began developing. And the way it developed was like this.

There is a mountain here, this is called Mount Tumulus, and there's a kind of a plateau, let me point to it here so it's a little easier to see, there's a plateau up in here, the sides of which are vertical. So now they've got this nice plateau, vertical side, the only way that you can get up onto that plateau, there is a winding, sharp, narrow ridge that comes up on the south side.

All the rest of the city is vertical. So what they did is they said, let's build a city on top of this plateau and nobody can get to us. We're untouchable. And so that's exactly what they did. This is the upper city, the high part of the city of Sardis. Now, what they did there is they built a fortress up in there. The rest of the city built down lower, down in the lower areas that you see here. But this military aspect of Sardis ends up becoming real important in understanding the passage. So that's why we're going to want to come back to this. Now, something else that we talked about a few weeks back.

Throughout these seven churches, we noticed that there are three satanic strategies, and you've likely got a handout that addresses these. These three satanic strategies that come to the surface in these seven churches The first one there is this Roman imperial cult. The idea is that they deified the emperor.

You see that pop up. It's prominent in some of the churches. In some of the other churches, it's still a significant factor. We want to take a look for that here. The next thing is that there's this Greek mystery religion that's on top of it. The Greek mystery religion was prominent to some.

You'll see it referred directly in Revelation 2.24. The third thing is the Jewish synagogue religion. The reference to each of those is the throne of Satan, the depths of Satan, and the synagogue of Satan. That's the scriptural terms that are used. Those are three satanic strategies to combat the church, to fight against what the Lord is doing in the church.

You may have that on a handout. You can pick one up in the lobby there if you missed it. But it's important, as we're going through this, let's keep our eyes peeled for these things, okay? Now, let's talk about the first one, the Roman Empire. Remember this guy? Our friend Augie?

Augustus, one of the things we pointed out here, see this little line along the bottom of the neck, is that they would make the statue and because the statues were hard to make they would they would knock the head off and put a different head on when the next emperor came along, so that's why they had this wax line. And so if it didn't have wax, that statue was sincere, without wax. If it had the wax, like this one, it's insincere. So this is an insincere statue. Now, the reason this is important is Sardis started a priesthood to Roma, the goddess of Rome, before This guy was even around, before Augustus was even around. But, by 27 BC, Sardis was trying to establish a cult temple to Augustus Caesar.

They kept working at it, and working at it, and working at it, and finally, in 5 BC, they got the approval and the money together to develop a cult statue to this guy. They continued on, they even developed a special cult statue and temple to his son Gaius. So they were really dedicated with this Roman emperor worship. They went beyond that.

In 17 AD there was a big earthquake. It just caused tremendous damage. The emperor at that point in time, Tiberius, came in and donated lots of money to help rebuild the city of Sardis. So these people were just indebted to the Roman emperors. They just couldn't thank them enough.

Now, they went on beyond that and made extra efforts to try to get approval for more temples to the emperor. So we know that Sardis was a place where there was emperor worship, and it was strong. They even, for a while, renamed the city Caesar's Sardis. and it's because they were really big into this emperor worship. But that's not all. Let's take a look at the next phase here.

This is a temple to Artemis, formerly the goddess Cybele. They would say the same god or goddess, different name. A really large temple area, this is obviously just what was left But what they would do is they would have this statue of the goddess in the middle of the temple. That would be this large thing. Around it they'd have these courtyards, and then they would have this altar to Artemis. And I don't want to gross anybody out here, but what they would do is they would sacrifice a bull on the altar, and then they would have the worshippers come and bathe in the blood.

And that was a part of their process of worship. Like this temple, there were also other pagan temples. Temples to Hera, that was the wife of Zeus. They had a temple to Demeter, another one that she was the goddess of fruits on the earth. And they also, by order of Alexander the Great, had a temple to Zeus. So there was plenty of pagan temples on top of the temples to the Roman emperors. That's not all.

They had, of course, a nice bathhouse. This particular bathhouse was being built about the time the Book of Revelation was being written, to give you some sense. So when the people in Sardis got this message, this was under construction. Right next to that, after the time of the Book of Revelation, they built a large synagogue. The synagogue was extraordinarily large for the city. And this is a picture of the synagogue.

The Jewish community, we know by other writings, they had special letters giving them a right to have kosher foods in the marketplace, and to have certain rights in a place of meeting, and they had a strong Jewish presence. So now, here we see it, you've got a strong cult to the Roman emperors, you've got a strong otherwise pagan temple cult, plus you've got a strong presence of the Jewish religion. Of those three satanic strategies we talked about, all three, strong in Sardis, well represented. Now, just to kind of give you a general sense, this was a picture of the plaza area, and the fortress was kind of up off to this side, to kind of give you some sort of reference.

Oh, something I need to mention here. We've got all these nice pictures, and that's great. We've got all these photos to show you. But one of the problems we have in the next couple of chapters is we're going to get into places we don't have any pictures. So we'll need a volunteer. And so see me after the service if anybody would like to have the church send you to heaven, and we'll get some pictures and send those back, okay? Anyway, so we've got these pictures here.

One of the things to note here, Sardis had a past history of gold mining. Because of that, they established a mint. According to some authorities and researchers, the first coinage in the world was minted here at Sardis. Because they had the gold right there, they said, hey, let's put our stamp on it and now you'll have it. They had lots of commercial activity. There was a nearby therapeutic hot springs, which we'll get into in a little bit. But it was a city that was coasting on its past life. It was living based on kind of the way things had been.

And with that as a background, let's look at Revelation chapter 3 verses 1 through 6. You can read it through with me if you like. To the angel of the church at Sardis write, He who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars says this, I know your deeds, that you have a name, that you are alive, but you are dead. Wake up and strengthen the things that remain, which were about to die, for I have not found your deeds completed in the sight of my God. So remember what you have received and heard and keep it and repent. Therefore, if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief and you will not know at what hour I will come to you.

But you have a few people in Sardis who have not soiled their garments, and they will walk with me in white, for they are worthy. He who overcomes will thus be clothed in white garments. And I will not erase his name from the book of life, and I will confess his name before my Father and before his angels. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches." Okay, let's dig into this passage piece by piece so that we certainly get an understanding exactly what is being said here.

Revelation 3.1. To the angel, that is the messenger, of the church at Sardis, write he who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. This introduction as shown on page one of your handout has a similarity to the introductory message that was given to the church at Ephesus. It focuses not on the character of the church so much as who Christ is and what he does and what he is destined to be.

The seven spirits of God, as we mentioned previously when we took a look at this, refers to the Holy Spirit working through Christ as described in Isaiah 11 verse 2. And counting through this as we went through it, you notice there is basically a seven-fold ministry of the Holy Spirit in the Messiah. This is a prophecy about the Messiah, and one of the ways that that's very clear is if you read in Isaiah 10 and 11, it is quite clear this is the Messiah who will reign in the millennium. So this is the sevenfold ministry of the Holy Spirit.

The next, he says, are seven stars that Christ holds, and these are the seven messengers of the seven churches, each of whom was to carry the message and the rest of the book to each of the seven churches. And then Christ, who says this, I know your deeds, he says, that you have a name, that you are alive, but you are dead. Now, notice Christ says that he knows their deeds.

But, interesting, after that he neither commends nor elaborates on those deeds. The other letters that we have written, the other messages, have all had some content where there's some elaborating or delineating what those deeds are. You notice it's entirely missing here. There's none of it. Instead, the Lord takes it in a completely different direction. So let's take note of that.

He tells them they have a name, but that they are alive. Now, you may have heard A name means something deep in scripture. And that's important for the Hebrew mindset was that a name had a deep meaning. And so there's real significance, for example, in studying the names of God in the Bible. Because those particularly are written in Hebrew. You may recall there are a number of places in scripture where it talks about praying in the name of the Lord. And it's because in the Hebrew understanding, the idea of a name was something deep.

It had to do with the character of a person, the deep character. In the Greek mind, and it's Greeks largely to whom he's writing, in the Greek mind, a name was superficial. So when he's saying this, he's not talking about, you know, you have a name that you're alive and that refers to something deep.

He's saying instead, you have a name that you're alive, It's actually talking about reputation. You have a reputation for being alive. Everybody out there in Sardis and all around thinks you're a lively church. You have a reputation for being alive, everybody thought. But look what he hits them with. He doesn't waste any time. He turns right around and says, you have a reputation for being alive.

You've got a name, but you're dead. The Greek word there is necros, and it's like in medicine, they'll talk about necrotic tissue. It's dead. These people were necrotic, spiritually. You have a reputation for being alive, but when it comes to spiritual things, I'm afraid you're just gangrenous. You're dead.

You see the contrast there? This was shocking. This was absolutely stunning for them to hear. I'm sure they were just totally blown away to hear this. You see, they may have had lots of people in attendance. They may have had lots of programs going. They may have had an abundance of meetings and activities. They may even have been having a growth in numbers. But in spite of that, he says, you have a reputation for being alive, but you are dead spiritually. Harsh words, hard words. Let's take a further look. You see, for all they were doing, and that apparently gave them a reputation for being a lively church body, for all they were doing, it was apparently not based on the life of the Lord.

Colossians 3-4 tells us clearly that Christ, for the church, Christ is our life. Christ is our life. You see, the church at Sardis apparently had everything that looked like it was lively, But it was lacking the life of Christ. It was lacking a dependence upon Christ's life. And that is why I called it dead. You know what?

The church today, and I'm speaking in general terms, the church today frequently has the same problem. We may have lots of programs. We may have lots of activities. We may have books that are hitting the bestseller charts. We may have everything from meeting felt needs to being secret sensitive.

But the reality is, great statistics and even megachurches does not make a church alive. Numbers on the wall does not make a church alive. Impressive income and financial statistics does not make a church alive. Having the best in technology does not make a church alive. What does make a church alive is depending personally and corporately on the person of Jesus Christ, and nothing else.

And that's exactly what he was putting his finger on. He says, you have all kinds of things going on, everybody is impressed, but I am not. That's his message. You see, it isn't what people think about the church, but what Christ thinks about the church. It's not, taking it individually, it's not so much what people think about the saint, but what Christ thinks about the saint. You get the impression here? What it looks like, what you have a reputation for, is not what counts. It's what does Christ think of it.

That's what counts, and little else. Now, One of the things to note here, and we made note of it earlier, but I think it's important to look at it, there were no words of commendation in this message. This is the first we've hit that there's been absolutely nothing. Previously it says, I know you have this, I know you have that, and here it's just, I know you have works, I know you've got deeds, and it gives you a reputation for being alive, but you're dead.

Here, there's no words of commendation, it's very blunt. Based on that, I would say that the Church of Sardis is the worst church we've seen so far. It's in the worst condition. It's in the worst shape. No condemnation. He comes out immediately with the problem. You have a reputation, but that's all you've got.

You see, with the other churches, there were mention of problems. The Nicolaitans, there was the false apostles, the teachings of Balaam, the prophecies of Jeroboam, Jezebel, there was the Jews that opposed them. You remember, you know, we've got the three different, you know, strategies of Satan. One church had the throne of Satan. Another, you know, had the depths of Satan.

The problem here is there's no problem at all. And that's a problem. Isn't that interesting? There's no problem, and that's a problem. All the things that were difficult for the other churches and caused them to stumble, Sardis didn't seem to struggle with at all. Do you see that? The fact that it wasn't even mentioned as a problem. See, it isn't like you've got some who hold to this.

He didn't even say there's some. He says you're all dead. That's serious. You've succumbed to everything on the list is what he's telling them. You've got the Greek emperor, the emperor worship. You've got the Greek mystery religion. You've got the legalism. You've got it all, and it's just totally overrun. You don't have a problem with some people being a part of it. The whole church has fallen. That's the message, and that's hard. That's harsh. But look at what Christ tells them next, verse 2. He gives them the quick response, Wake up!

And strengthen the things that remain. which were about to die, for I have not found your deeds completed in the sight of my God." You see, in spite of the church being characterized as being dead, there were apparently a few individuals, a few individual saints, who had not folded to the pressure. They had not knuckled under. They had not just gone with the flow. Based on the life of Christ in these few, there was still an opportunity to turn things around. By and large, the church was dead, but the life of Christ in these few was sufficient basis for rebuilding the church.

Wake up and strengthen. That word strengthen, by the way, is where we get our modern word for steroids. That's the Greek word that's behind there. He says, make it strong. Wake up. Be strengthened. You see, there was still a chance to rebuild based on this remnant of believers. Now, here's why we take a look at some of these geographic and historical things. It's not just purely as a matter of interest.

Sardis had been defeated militarily on more than one occasion over the centuries prior. And you know how it happened? It happened because they were so confident that they were invincible that on more than one occasion they were overtaken because they left only one person guarding all night. Everybody else went to sleep. Isn't that amazing? Everybody else went to sleep. As a matter of fact, here's how it happened at one instance. There was one fellow who was part of an invading army trying to take over this upper plateau that we looked at here. And he noticed a very important thing.

The people up in the plateau would throw their garbage and animal carcasses and things like that over the edge of the wall down into the ravine below. And so the vultures and other birds would come in and eat on the garbage and the animal carcasses. And when they were full, guess what they did? They went up and sat up on the wall.

Well, he noticed that the whole wall was lined with birds. Nobody was guarding the wall. So he noticed because of that and he says, look, there's only a guard right at this one entrance and everybody else not even bothering. And so they looked at the place that was the opposite of the area where the one place that was being guarded and they just went to the other end.

And they climbed up there and took over the city. That kind of scenario happened several times over the course of the history of the city of Sardis. So therefore it would make perfect sense to use this message to them, wake up. Wake up. As opposed to just everybody going to sleep except for the one, because that's what had happened in the church, hadn't it? Everybody had gone to sleep except for a few. He says, wake up! Strengthen what remains. Put guards at the wall. So that's why this message would hit home with these people, real clearly.

And notice there, he says next, Christ says, I have not found your deeds completed in the sight of my God. There are a couple of things to note. First, he was not telling them, in order to solve your deadness problem, you need to do more things. That's not the message. His point is, it's not more dead deeds. I instead am not addressing the quantity of deeds, I'm addressing the quality.

The character of what they were doing was wrong. It lacked the life of Christ. Notice one other thing. The perspective. Notice that it was in the sight of God. It's God's perspective and not man's. It's what God thinks and not what man thinks. You see that? What everyone else thinks matters little in comparison to what God thinks about my actions and my heart and my life.

In verse 3, So remember what you have received and heard, and keep it, and repent. Therefore, if you do not wake up, notice this waking up is a big issue. If you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come to you. See, like the church at Ephesus, the church at Sardis was called to remember. Recall that? As a matter of fact, let's pop that up here. You have something like this similar on your handout on page one.

There are similarities between these three churches and Laodicea we've not gotten to yet, but we will in a couple of weeks. Ephesus, Sardis, and Laodicea all suffered a loss. For Ephesus, it was a loss of love. For Sardis, it was a loss of life. For Laodicea, it will be a loss of zeal and passion, as we'll see there. But notice for both Ephesus and Sardis, the call is remember.

Remember. And notice too, for each, on the Overcomer, the focus is on life. So we'll be looking at this again, especially when we get to Laodicea. But interesting, of the seven churches, these three churches have something in common. Something is lost. There is something missing. And he puts a focus on that.

The call to remember in the case of Sardis was a call for them to return to what they had already been given at the start. They were to remember what they had received and what they had heard. And those verbs are in the perfect tense. It means it was already done and completed.

It is already there. They already had everything they needed. Ever been in a situation where you thought, boy, I can't do this and that, and then you discover you have something? You had it all along? And that's exactly what he was trying to get them to see. All the truths that this church needed had already been delivered to them.

And now he's telling them, look, I don't need to tell you anything you haven't already heard, but you do need to go back to it. and remember what you've already been given. Remember what you've already received. Paul wrote to the Philippians very similar wording, and this is what he wrote in Philippians 4 and 9. The things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.

Only the words to the church at Sardis were not quite so positive. See, like Paul's urging to the Philippians to practice these things, Christ was urging the church at Sardis to keep what they had received and heard. So that was similar. Unlike Paul's urging to the Philippians, though, Christ called the church at Sardis to repent. That's a complete turnabout and change of mind to go a different direction.

The phrase, come like a thief in the night, is one that you may have heard before because it shows up repeatedly, especially in the New Testament. Typically, it's about the second coming. But something to take note of here, the idea of using that phrase is not talking about, it's not a reference to moral quality. Christ is not a thief in that sense, okay?

But the point is, a thief will come in the night by surprise, exactly like the attacks came on Sardis when they fell. It was a surprise. They were totally stunned. Everybody was asleep. And he says, if you don't wake up, I'll come to you just like those attacks did, the way you lost the city before. Only in this case, it's not the city, it's the church. And I'll tell you later on what happened to Sardis. That's the rest of the story.

Now, in verse 4, But you have a few people in Sardis who have not soiled their garments, and they will walk with me in white, for they are worthy. You see, though the church was spiritually dead, there was a superficial, high level of activity. There were still a few saints who were dependent upon the life of Christ.

The Greek here, by the way, where it talks about names, it should be names and not people, as it's put in some translations. It literally means names. Like the King James has names there, that's a better translation. There are some things about Sardis we still need to understand in order to get the best understanding of this verse here. Number one is Sardis had a large luxury garment industry. A large luxury garment industry. Then, those who came into the Temple of Artemis that we showed earlier had to wear clean white clothes or you couldn't get in. Then, there was something else.

In Zechariah 3, 3-7, the Lord talks about the Jewish high priest named Joshua this way. Let me read it. Now Joshua, the high priest, was clothed with filthy garments and standing before the angel. He spoke and said to those who were standing before him, saying, Remove the filthy garments from him. Again he said to him, See, I have taken your iniquity from you and will clothe you with festal robes.

So those who would be familiar with this passage would look at what was being written here about the white garments and see, ah, this isn't just talking about clothes, is it? This is talking about our sin condition. Therefore, three things. The luxury garment industry in the city of Sardis, the people's pagan religious backgrounds, because all of them would have been raised in that, and their understanding of this Old Testament passage for especially those who had Jewish background, all three of those things converge to point to the understanding of verse 4 and verse 5 where he talks about wearing white.

One last important thing about this verse, the worthiness of those who wear white is dependent upon Christ's righteousness and not because the people were doing lots of nice things. It was Christ's worthiness and not their own personal worthiness. Those worthy ones were recognized entirely by their dependence upon who Christ was and what Christ did. His accomplishments alone. That's their basis of their worthiness. Verse 5. Let's read it with the understanding that we have here.

He who overcomes will thus be clothed in white garments. That they would relate to very well, wouldn't they? clothed in white garments, and I will not erase his name from the book of life, and I will confess his name before my Father and before his angels." Here we have, as in all the other messages to the seven churches, a promise to the overcomers. It applies to the overcomers being those who have placed their faith in Christ for salvation. Those are the overcomers. It's threefold.

There's reference there to white garments, not erasing the name from the Book of Life, and confessing the name before the Father and angels. Now, let's take a look at each one of those one at a time. About the white garments, we know that Sardis had a luxury garment industry, and we know that the clean white garments were required for pagan worshippers to enter the temple. Aside from that, white garments are referred to repeatedly in the Book of Revelation, as we'll see in subsequent chapters.

Now, about the promise not to erase one's name. Now, you may have heard this as some kind of a threat. If you're not really a good Christian, you might get erased. You may have heard that. But that's not what it's talking about, and there are several reasons why. But here's the background. Someone who is a criminal in Sardis would have their name blotted out or erased from the list of those who are living in Sardis. And we know that there are a couple of different ways that you could be a criminal, among others. One is by entering the pagan temple with soiled clothes. If you were not wearing clean white clothes and you entered the pagan temple, they would blot your name out.

So all of a sudden you're off the list of the living. You lose your citizenship rights. The other reason why you might have your name blotted out is by refusing to acknowledge the Emperor's deity. They would also say, ah, well, you're a criminal if they let you live. And so we're going to blot your name out. And if they killed you, well, you're going to get your name blotted out anyway because you're dead.

So either way, those two things connected. So it's important to take a look here. Those things reflect exactly on what Christ had mentioned here. Now, there's another key insight This is a figure of speech. We talked about that in the class before. There's a figure of speech here. It's called litetes. Here's an example. We use it in English.

Nancy is not a bad cook. We don't mean to defer anything about being a bad cook. What we're using that for is to make an emphasis to say she's a really good cook. Ferrari is not a cheap car, that means it's an expensive car. Peter is not a slow cyclist, as a way of saying that Peter is a fast cyclist.

There are three more examples that come right out of the book of Acts, because Dr. Luke really loved to use this figure of speech. No small disturbance among the soldiers. What does that mean? A big disturbance. No small storm. It was a big storm. Repeatedly he used that, and there's actually other examples in Acts, I just picked a few.

But what he's doing is he's using that figure of speech here, I will not erase his name, that's not a threat that you might have your name erased. That is an example of the same figure of speech to say there is no way I'm going to erase your name. As a matter of fact, he uses in the Greek here in this verse, he used what's called a double emphatic. And it has this weight. It is not even in the slightest possibility that I will erase your name. That's what the Greek is telling us here. It is not in the slightest possibility that I will erase your name from the book of life. Not even a little bit.

Christ's promise to the overcomers is significant because the overcomers are promised that they would indeed have white clothes. Not to walk into the earthly temple to worship the pagan goddess, but to walk with Christ. You see the contrast? You're going to have white clothes, but it has nothing to do with those pagan temples that you've been walking into. Church at Sardis. You're going to have white clothes because you're going to walk with Christ. That's the comparison.

Refusing to acknowledge the Emperor as deity that would guarantee, whether you were just called a criminal or killed, that would guarantee that your name would be blotted out from the citizenship rules from those living in Sardis. But what does Christ say? I will in no way, there is not the slightest possibility that I'm going to blot your name out from the book of life of those who will be citizens in heaven. See the contrast there? He's saying, you may be worried about having your name blotted out of the citizenship rolls, those who are living in Sardis, but I'm telling you, you have not the slightest thing to worry about, about having your name blotted out from the citizenship rolls in heaven.

You see how well this fits exactly with what Sardis was going through, with the things that were plaguing the church. He was giving them promises that would help them stand where they needed to stand. Exactly. To me, it's beautiful. It's amazing because it wasn't just, hey, here's a bit of wisdom for you and it's a random piece. It fit like a glove exactly what was going on in Sardis and exactly what they needed to hear. To me, it's just a marvelous masterpiece.

The last part of the promise to the Overcomer is that his name would be confessed before the Father and his angels. And this fits perfectly well. Matthew 10.32 says this, Therefore everyone who confesses me before men, I will also confess him before my Father who is in heaven. But what about the angels?

Oh, well let's turn to Luke 12.8. And I say to you, everyone who confesses me before men, the Son of Man will confess him also before the angels of God."

Put those together and you have exactly what he told the church at Sardis. He finishes it off there in verse 6, He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. And now for the rest of the story. This is what happened to Sardis. The Christian community at Sardis continued to expand in numbers from the records that we have.

And one of the community's more notable members was Melito, and he wrote about 50 years after this book of Revelation was written. He was a major writer during that time. However, we have archaeological evidence that the Christians there continued to just kind of fit in with the rest of the pagans and the Jews and didn't make waves. Remember earlier I was talking about how Islam just kind of swept over across, you know, into Europe?

Well, that included Sardis. Sardis was one of those places that fell to Islam. The church continued to exist there for a little bit longer, but finally fell. And in 1402, the Muslims came in and totally demolished the city. And now there is no more Sardis, except for the ruins that you see. There is a village nearby called Sart that matches it, but that's it. There are no Christians in Sardis. There are no Christians even nearby. Nowhere nearby is there anything.

Of those who are truly Christians, it's been estimated that the nation of Turkey being an example. When I was living in Nevada, the comparison was given to me that it would be like two Christians living in all of Nevada, that percentage of Turkey is now Christian. Give you some kind of an idea. Now, the message of the church in Sardis is that we as individuals and that we as a church are not to depend on our past life.

You see, that's what Sardis was doing. They were just coasting. They were coasting on the life they used to have. After all, they were built there because of this fortress position. And now, with the Romans in control, it didn't make any difference. They were coasting on this life that had been established. But they weren't really living on what was currently being developed. They were just coasting.

For Christians, there is no place for coasting on what we once had and once were. We are instead to rest right now in who He is and what He has done. What Christ did for us is past tense. He died and was buried and raised and ascended and seated. But in one day we will walk with Him in white. In the future tense. We are right now told to look for His coming. But the life He has given us right here And right now is in the present tense. He is our life. He is, notice the present tense, He is our life. Right here, right now. And that's the way it will continue to be until we see Him face to face. Let's go to our Lord now.

Lord, how marvelous that you have fit this message together for the Church of Sardis. And we just pray, Lord, to whatever portions of this fit in our own life, as we see He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. We just pray that your Holy Spirit would convict us in areas where we need to change, where we need to take this message to heart. And Lord, we pray, especially taking this particular message to heart, that we would not coast on what happened last week or what happened a month ago or years past, but we would instead each day walk in fellowship with you and each day that we would reckon ourselves dead and that it would be your life living through us and not our own. And Lord, we pray that we would not be fooled as this church was apparently fooled quite well. We pray that we would not be fooled by what appears to be life. but that we would not be satisfied with anything other than your life. And we just pray this in Jesus' name, you who is our life. Amen.